In the notes for the CND2 program, scholar Maura Keefe lists “a fluid musicality in movement” as one of the distinguishing features of Duato’s choreography. One takes this idea to describe two aspects of Duato’s work: first that dance and musical gesture typically meat (which they did or do); and, second that one follows the chains of dance “events” in Duato’s works with the same ease as one follows those of music. This suggests that Duato’s choreography would still hold its “fluid musicality” even if performed in silence. And, because one could follow it, one felt thrill rather than confusion in Duato’s rush of movement. In this way Duato’s works make sense, they are soundly made. But, for this viewer, the two works by Duato in this program, “Remansos” and “Rassemblement,” lacked fury. They were cold. Even the moral purpose that informed “Rassemblement” seemed more like charity rather than passionate empathy.

Salsa spices up Stravinsky ballet scoreIsraeli choreographer Emanuel Gat’s striking new version of “The Rite of Spring” was born in an unlikely place - on the sidewalk near a beach. Gat was listening on his headphones to a recording of Leonard Bernstein conducting Stravinsky’s famous score when suddenly he came upon a group of salsa dancers in the street. “It was one of those moments when you see something and it becomes a vision you know will work,” said Gat.

A muse affirms a master’s relevanceSeldom is the master/muse relationship more observed and analyzed than in the realm of dance. In the case of former New York City Ballet prima ballerina Suzanne Farrell, whose name has long been synonymous with “George Balanchine muse,” wonderful things emerge when the muse becomes the master. Suzanne Farrell Ballet, founded in 2000 and based at the Kennedy Center, made its Jacob Pillow debut on Wednesday night.

Everyone in Over/Come ends up on the floor twitching. In one of the most disquieting scenes, while Williams sings "Are You Sincere?," Aszure Barton reclaims Ian Robinson, the partner she left behind in the tango crumpled on the floor, and as he braces himself in a semi-pushup, shaking from the effort, she stands for what seems like a very long time on his back, laughing.

The results of Gat's musical approach are sometimes affecting, sometimes disturbing. In Winter Voyage, Schubert's ravishing songs about memory, grief, and approaching death — separated by long silences — seem to stand for inner voices that the performers, Roy Assaf and Gat, both listen to and race against.

In her Pillow Talk at Jacob’s Pillow last weekend, Suzanne Farrell was asked what she expects of the young dancers who are reviving George Balanchine’s ballets under her direction. Farrell said she teaches the steps of the ballets and all the other information she gathered as a principal at the New York City Ballet during Balanchine’s golden age. But then, she said...

Nacho Duato, Ballets Russes, Suzanne Farrell, Emanuel GatThere were baby ballerinas on screen and on stage for the first full weekend of Jacob’s Pillow 2006. In its smaller Doris Duke Studio Theatre, the Pillow offered Ballets Russes, .... In the Ted Shawn Theatre, the spotlight was on the 14 16-to-21-year-olds of Spain’s Compañía Nacional de Danza 2, which was making its third Pillow appearance in four years.

‘Waters’ is a premiere to rememberThis week at Jacob’s Pillow, dancer -choreographer Tania Pérez-Salas turns the stage of the Ted Shawn Theatre into a shallow pool for the US premiere of a stunningly gorgeous work called “Waters of Forgetfulness.” Inspired by a book by philosopher/polymath Ivan Illich, Pérez-Salas’s work for seven dancers is not only visually arresting but unabashedly sensual, subliminally erotic, and achingly human.

At Jacob’s Pillow Festival, the Dance as Cinema by JENNIFER DUNNING for the New York Times

Her choreography is rooted in the clean line and attack of classical ballet, as is the dancing of her fine 10-member troupe, based in Mexico City. But the dances stood out most for their intense theatricality and for Ms. Perez-Salas’s evident delight in entertaining her audiences.

Saarinen shakes up Jacob’s Pillow.... [Tero] Saarinen is one of a growing number of Finnish choreographers winning international recognition - Boston Ballet’s resident choreographer, Jorma Elo, is another - for their original and provocative dances. Tonight, the Tero Saarinen Company and the early music group Boston Camerata join forces at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, only a few miles from where many Shakers lived, worked and praised God through dancing and singing.

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